“My dear Latymer — that’s a big decision to expect from any man before we know all the facts. The newspapers have been full of the success of the Conference to date… we’ve got to be one hundred per cent certain before we commit an act of war, otherwise there’d be no support whatever from the country, let alone the rest of the world! Don’t you see?”
Latymer swung away angrily and started once again to pace the floor of the Operations Room. Shaw had given them all he could. Shaw had said that in his opinion the tower and tunnel were the trouble centres and he’d even passed a date when he thought things would happen — tomorrow afternoon… Latymer looked up at the clock. This afternoon — it was after midnight now.
And this afternoon the fleet was due to enter Moltsk…
The atmosphere in the Operations Room was tense, vibrant with uncertainty as the naval staff waited for word from Downing Street. W.R.N.S. ratings, their eyes watchful and anxious, stood round a large table where the movements of the British ships were being plotted hour by hour on the charts, showing the whole route out from England. Latymer stopped his restless pacing and looked down at those charts. A red circle marked the position of the tower as estimated by Shaw; the varying positions of the ships were shown by a series of crosses stretching from a point to the west of the Needles and extending round the North Cape to the current position in 31° 15’ East longitude, 71° 00’ North latitude — or in plain language, passing well to the eastward of Norway’s Varanger Fiord and nearly into Russian territorial waters. Six ships in all. The aircraft-carrier Invincible, the old heavy cruiser Lord Cochrane, and the frigates Turbulent, Harrier, Foxhound, and Petunia. This group of ships was commanded by Vice-Admiral Eric Carleton wearing his flag in the Invincible. He was a man of whom Latymer knew little though he had made a point of having a very private and unofficial word in his ear before the ships had sailed from Portsmouth, warning him, as he had promised Shaw he would, that a man from his department might make contact with him. Latymer could not foresee what the Admiral’s reactions might be if anything should happen in Moltsk that afternoon. Men were not made into supermen merely by the fact of being promoted to Flag rank, and all admirals were not ipso facto good ones; and Carleton had never before enjoyed an important seagoing command. He had done well in a shore job but that didn’t count. There was nothing against Carleton at all, of course, but Latymer had gathered that he was a prim and proper fellow who went entirely by the book; so much so that he was known to his subordinates as Careful Carleton. Moltsk, or rather what was likely to happen in Moltsk, had not been itemized in Queen’s Regulations and so nothing specific had been laid down as to how to deal with it; a state of affairs that could catch a bookish admiral on the hop. Carleton had, of course, been kept informed by radio of the situation as it was known to Whitehall, but only in broad terms, and he had been given no precise instructions or guidance whatever. In these circumstances Careful Carleton might dither. Had Latymer been in Carleton’s shoes and back at sea again, he would have read between the lines of the signals; and, rather than wait for orders that might never come, he would have used something of the Nelson touch and would have entered the arrival channel for Moltsk with his guns cleared away for action so that he could if necessary blast hell out of that tower on the way in, taking it for granted that someone in chairbound authority was unwilling, scared, to give the sensible order until the whole situation had been revealed down to the last hair’s breadth of Intelligence.
Latymer almost jumped when a telephone-bell jangled into his thoughts. He hoped it might be Carberry with more news from Shaw, positive news, but, as he had known in his heart, it was not; a junior officer hurried to answer it and then spoke to the First Sea Lord, who went heavily across the room and listened for some moments. As he put the phone down Latymer looked at him inquiringly and asked, “Well, sir?”
“Prime Minister himself.” The Chief of Staff spoke abruptly. “You’ve got your wish, Latymer — and I can only hope to God it’s the right thing to do. Four squadrons of Vulcans, supported by jet fighters, will take off one hour before dawn. Meanwhile,” he added, “I’m ordered to recall the fleet.”
Water, icy water, slopped continually into the boat as Shaw strained his eyes ahead through the thick darkness.
There was still that bitter wind and it was blowing more strongly now, straight off the Arctic snows; and a lash of rain was in it too. The waves, short and breaking, were bitten off in spray which blew into their faces stingingly, so that it was an effort, an agony, to keep their eyes open and watch the seas ahead. Slivers of ice in the rain had raised open weals and cuts on Shaw’s face and in spite of the hot coffee from the flask he was chilled through and through again, his fingers numbed as they gripped the bucking mast to windward. He had insisted that Triska and Carew have all the blankets, and Triska was huddled in the stern nursing the tiller and keeping an eye on Carew, forward under the canvas dodger. The scientist was moaning all the time now in delirium and when Shaw had looked in at him his face had been just a white, contorted blur. Shaw didn’t believe he could possibly last much longer now.
Stinking weather, he thought, as the cold wind went right to the marrow of his bones; but it had its compensations. The seas were empty, had been empty ever since, when they had been not far out from the fiord, he’d seen the loom of an unlighted power-boat outlined distantly against the northern sky and he’d hauled down the sail and stayed motionless, invisible with the high rock mass behind him, and then got clear away to sea once the coastal patrol had roared off southward.
The cold was the enemy now; nothing else.
Shaw looked down at Triska, feeling a rush of pity for the girl. She’d already been terribly seasick but she was bearing up wonderfully under the filthy, dangerous conditions. He called out, “Keep it up. Not far off the track now. We’ll pick ’em up soon.”
“Suppose they have already passed, Peter?” Her voice came to him thinly against the wind, though he knew she was shouting. He called back to her reassuringly, though he was far from happy himself. He had to keep that cheerful front whatever happened, had to see to it that she kept her spirits up. This cold was deadly, enough to make anyone give up hope, and once you gave up hope you gave up trying to keep alive, and then the cold really got you and you’d had it.
He stared ahead again, straining to keep his eyes into the lashing rain. The boat ran on into the restless, hostile seas. Minutes dragged by like decades; half an hour later there was still nothing, nothing but sea and black sky and the wind and the biting rain, and Shaw began to wonder…
He scarcely dared to believe it at first when he saw the lights through the murk. Then there were the bulky shadows, darker than the night, and he felt wild, flooding exultation.
He narrowed his eyes into the weather and then, as if in confirmation of his hopes, he saw the white masthead lights coming clearly into view one by one; and then a little later the green sidelights of the British fleet as it approached and bore down from the north, standing well to the eastward of the little, plunging boat. Then he made out the big black bulk of an aircraft-carrier and behind her the fighting-top of the old cruiser; ahead and on the bow, extended as an escort screen around the heavy ships, he saw the smaller shapes and the lights of the Home Fleet frigates.